I have cycled many thousands of miles in my life, but I've never been in this much pain. A double stitch squeezes me from both sides. My lungs heave with exertion. In between desperate, wheezing breaths, I think I can taste blood.

“Keep looking up. Never look down, always look straight,” shouts Shane Sutton from the Team Sky support car driving beside me. I lift my eyes to the road just in time to see yet another competitor in head-to-toe Lycra zoom out of sight ahead of me.

I’m last. I can just tell.

It wasn’t meant to be like this. Just an hour previously, I was sitting next to Sutton, the British Cycling head coach and performance adviser (and former head coach) of Team Sky, as he taught me how to be a better cyclist.

We meet on the Team Sky bus in advance of the race – a ten mile time trial around a car test circuit near Leamington Spa. As one would expect from the team that now has two Tour De France titles under its belt and is credited with transforming the sport through the philosophy of marginal gains – making everything a bit better – things are pretty swish. There is a conference table, various widescreen televisions, kitchen, shower, and some vast all-encompassing leather armchairs into which the weary Sky cyclists sink post-race. I sit in the first one I see.

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“That’s Wiggo’s chair,” Sutton tells me with an arched eyebrow. “The big hitters always have their own favourite seat.” I’m wearing a fleece to race in. It’s clear to both of us from the outset that I’m no big hitter.

When it comes to getting better on a bike, Sutton, a 56-year-old whippet-thin Australian with the strange, ethereal look that all top cyclists seem to develop, is a good person to listen to. Alongside Sir Dave Brailsford, he has helped transform the sport in Britain over the past ten years. Sutton has been involved since the inception of Team Sky in 2009 and was one of the first people to champion the idea of a new British squad competing at the highest level of road cycling. He is known for forming a close bond with the riders, and played a key role in helping Sir Bradley Wiggins become the first ever Englishman to win the Tour de France in 2012. During the race, Sutton was ever-present by his side and remains a close confidant today.

Wiggins's autobiographical account of his Tour de France and Olympic wins, My Time, includes a lengthy description of their relationship. He credits Sutton with playing a key role in his recovery after a disastrous Tour de France in 2010 and describes him as "the only person who could put me on the right footing, who could tell me things I didn't want to hear at times when I might not want to hear them".

Sutton is similarly effusive about his friend. Especially when I ask him who is the most naturally gifted out of Wiggins and the seemingly unstoppable Froome.

“For me it has got to be Wiggo. Just look at the guy, it is everything about him. The pedal stroke, how aerodynamic he can get. He is poetry in motion. Every cyclist should try to ride like him. He is the real deal in that sense. The bike just seems to fit him.”

Having a bike that actually fits, Sutton tells me, is the most important thing any cyclist can do to instantly improve performance, regardless of what level they are at. It may sound obvious, but he says he is constantly struck when out riding one of his fleet of Pinarellos from his Stockport home how few amateurs actually sit right on their bikes.

The saddle should be high enough so when the sole of your foot is on the pedal, there is a slight bend in your leg. To best measure the ideal “reach” (the distance between your saddle and handlebars) you should put your elbow against the tip of your saddle and measure three fingers between the stem and your outstretched arm. Mine, it turns out, a bike I’ve been riding happily for a year, is at least an inch too short. “When you are riding you want to be as flat as possible,” Sutton says. “You don’t want to be up on the top.”

Sutton stresses the importance of maintenance, too. Far better, he says, to have a well-kept old racer than a Pinarello Dogma with soft tyres and a squeaky chain.

“I’m not saying buy the best equipment but it’s important to have the right equipment. Check the tyres for bits of glass before you head out and oil the chain. It doesn’t matter whether you have electric or manual gears. It is not about the bike but how you maintain it. For Joe Bloggs on the street, what makes you better is looking after yourself and your equipment.”

As for looking after yourself, his advice is music to my ears. Wiggins et al may have to exist on porridge, pasta, omelettes and boiled chicken to perform at the highest level, but Sutton says tea and cakes is more than fine for amateurs. “Little and often”, is his mantra while on the saddle. “You can eat anything as long as it is going to keep you going. It’s important to get carbs on board before you go out, but as long as you’re fuelling when you're riding it doesn’t really matter what it is.”

He also says there is no point in worrying about other special leg or core training exercises to get faster. “It’s about as much time in the saddle as possible. The more you ride the better you get. It’s as simple as that. Once you get that big engine you go more into specifics. What is your challenge? As a recreational cyclist are you looking to ride in an etape or a sportive or just be faster than your mates.”

Shane Sutton. Photo: Jaguar UK

Back to my race. The course is dead flat, with a vicious wind whipping in. Sutton advises riders to keep low and aerodynamic, with arms tucked in and eyes looking forward, not down. Instead of trying to force yourself forward in a top gear, he says maintaining a comfortable cadence (the amount of revolutions of the crank over a minute) is far more important. On hills, in particular, Sutton recommends counting your cadence. His method is to count the number of times you push down with your right leg over 30 seconds, then double it.

“On hills, clearly it’s important to get your gears right. Stay on a good cadence. On a climb you still want to be on an 80/90rpm range. Grinding up a hill doesn’t work. Ideally it is always better to be in the saddle. Quintana (the dazzling Columbian hill climber) can do it at about 70rpm or thereabouts. He is always in a gear or two above everybody else. Froome’s cadences on Mont Ventoux were incredible.”

If you do get out of the saddle, he says, always climb pushing down on the brake hoods to best transfer power. As for advice on speeding down hills, “At my age you just want to recover”. Although he does say when cornering at speed to push down on the side of the handlebar that is turning to propel the bike around far quicker.

We step off the bus and wheel my bike towards the start line. The time trial is the grand final of a series of 18 different races organised over the past year by the car manufacturer Jaguar. The winner gets a place on the Team Sky training camp in Majorca. My rivals sport carbon fibre frames, clip in pedals (which Sutton says are a must), tri helmets, and a dizzying rainbow of Lycra shirts.

Sutton says at an amateur level all that unflattering Lycra stretched over beer guts and bingo wings doesn’t really make any difference. Nonetheless, he approves. “People want to go out and ride in a Wiggo jersey, whether they can pull it off or not. It’s part of the fun. If I go to the park and play football with my kids I want to look like Christian Benteke – that is what we do as sports fans.”

Despite the pedigree of my coach, it is clear as soon as I set off that an ill-fitting stem is going to be the least of my worries. The course is seven laps and I fail to heed Sutton’s advice of not pushing it too much, too soon. By the end of lap two, buffeted by a fierce headwind, I’m starting to flag. The other time triallists, meanwhile, keep flying by.

I grit my teeth, try and forget about the pain and keep going. Then, midway through lap six with my legs seized up and lungs fit to burst, Sutton pulls up close alongside me in the support car.

“You know what, mate. If I were you I’d knock off a lap early and not tell anyone.” I peel off triumphantly at the finish line a few minutes later. That, Shane Sutton, is the best advice I’ve heard all day.

Shane Sutton was driving the Jaguar XF Sportbrake at the Jaguar Ride Like a Pro event. The Jaguar XF Sportbrake is the official car of professional cycling squad Team Sky